Evaluating on faith

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, February 6, 2003

2003-02-06 04:00:00 PDT Boston -- MICHAEL DINI doesn't exactly fit the profile of an anti-religious bigot. For one thing, the Texas Tech biology professor spent 14 years in a Roman Catholic order of teaching brothers.

If he's bigoted against anything, it's probably against the current wave of grade inflation or perhaps "recommendation inflation." In any case, Dini's Web page lays out strict criteria for any student who wants his recommendation to graduate school in science.

First of all, he says, you have to earn an A in his class. Second, he adds, "I should know you fairly well." And third, you need to "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the question: "How do you think the human species originated?"

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It was the need to affirm evolution that startled Micah Spradling out of his seat. The young student wasn't in Dini's class long enough to (1) get an A or (2) get to know the professor. But Spradling dropped out anyway. He did some time at Lubbock Christian University, got a medical school recommendation there and then returned to Texas Tech with some lawyers added to his curriculum vitae.

This is the sort of frivolous lawsuit you thought conservatives opposed, but never mind. Remember when the fight against Darwin in the classroom reappeared in the 1980s? Creationists insisted they weren't trying to get their religion into the curriculum. Creationism wasn't faith, they said, it was fact. Now they're arguing that creationism is part of Spradling's religion.

I guess even creationists can evolve.

As for lawyers, watching the Liberty Legal Institute ostensibly fight prejudice is enough to make anyone dizzy. This is the group that, among many other things, fought to uphold anti-sodomy laws that make homosexuality illegal in Texas.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but conservative lawyers are now agile and nervy enough to hijack liberal arguments for their own causes. Kelly Shackleford, the chief counsel, actually compared Dini's attitude toward a creationist with that of a racist. What if Dini refused to write letters of recommendation to African Americans? Shackleford asked.

Needless to say, Dini's refusal to recommend a creationist for a graduate degree in medicine or science is not like refusing to recommend an African American. It's like refusing to recognize someone who doesn't believe in gravity for a Ph.D. program in physics. But creationists who believe the origin of the species is an open and shut book -- and the book is the Bible -- now accuse evolutionists of being narrow-minded.

There is nothing that says you can't believe in God and evolution. Scientists do it all the time. Including, I am told, professor Dini. Most Americans believe, in a phrase, that "God created evolution."

But as Dini asks rhetorically on his now infamous Web page, "How can someone who does not accept the most important theory in biology expect to properly practice in a field that is so heavily based on biology?" Is a scientist expected to entertain all points of view on whether say, the Earth travels around the sun, or risk being called a bigot?

Dini may have been brave or naive to put his principles down on pixels. Writing recommendations is the most arbitrary and individualistic of extracurricular activities performed by a professor.

If he is convicted of "discriminating" against religion, surely every student can demand that a professor equate beliefs and facts. Next stop, astrology for astronomers? Feng Shui for physicists? Anyone want a recommendation? How about a lawyer instead?